A Dialectical Analysis of the Tripartite Qualities of 'Dao' in the Guanzi: Intricacy, Expansion, and Solidity
This paper provides an in-depth interpretation of the opening discourse on 'Dao' in the *Guanzi: Neiye*, analyzing the connotations and dialectical unity of its tripartite qualities: 'intricacy necessitates density, expansion necessitates ease, and solidity necessitates firmness.' It further explores their significance for self-cultivation and mental governance within the context of Pre-Qin and ancient thought.
II. Knowledge Reorganization After "Severing the Connection Between Earth and Heaven"
The Book of Documents, "The Edict of Lü," records the historical event of "severing the connection between earth and heaven" (絕地天通). Before this, shamans were the sole channel for communication between Heaven and Earth; afterwards, the authority to communicate with Heaven and Earth was consolidated among a few official shamans and priests, and ordinary shamans lost their legitimacy.
This event had a profound impact on the cultivation tradition:
- The cultivation techniques originally belonging to shamans began to enter the populace.
- Shamans who lost official status needed to find new grounds of legitimacy for their cultivation techniques—no longer appealing to spirits and ghosts, but appealing to natural philosophy.
- These cultivation techniques were gradually absorbed by various schools of thought, becoming components of self-cultivation practices in Daoism, Confucianism, and others.
Neiye is precisely the crystallization of this historical process. It retains the core techniques of shamanic cultivation (grasping Qi, stilling the mind, resonance) but completely transforms the explanatory framework ("not through the power of spirits and ghosts, but through the acme of vital energy"), making it a rational method of self-cultivation that can be practiced by everyone.